The Cupcake Diaries (8 page)

“I wasn’t thinking too straight at the time.” Dave took her hand in his. “But I assure you, I am now. So . . . how about that date?”

A
MIST GATHERED
over the surf and drifted inland in wisps like ghostly dancers doing the tango upon the sand. Her heart pounding with anticipation, Stacey took Dave’s hand and followed him down the stairs to the beach, as if to join them.

Except they didn’t dance, they walked, stopping only once or twice when he spun her around for a quick kiss. And they didn’t care who could overhear them but bantered back and forth over the merits of pet rocks and sea glass until the sun dimmed and their sides ached from laughter.

Stacey didn’t know if it was because she’d had another sell-out day of sales or the fact she was with Dave that made her feel so full of peace. They sat down, and although the air grew cooler, the sand remained warm, locking in the heat of the day and blanketing their bare feet with warmth.

“I’m so glad you suggested we eat take-out on the beach,” Stacey said, snuggling into Dave’s side. She hadn’t had the best experience with dates and restaurants and didn’t want anything to jinx their relationship before it even began.

“Me, too,” Dave agreed, “except the food didn’t make it down to the beach. The fish and chips were gone before we even reached the end of the street.”

Stacey smiled, and Dave’s head drew near, hopefully for a longer kiss this time . . . when suddenly a loud, incessant mooing as if from a hundred-foot-tall beast of a cow pierced the air.

She jumped back and looked in every direction around her. “What’s that?”

“The tsunami alarm system. It sounds—”

“Tsunami?” Stacey jumped to her feet, her pulse tripping over itself in a series of unrhythmic beats. “We have to run!”

She took a few steps, stumbled over a large piece of driftwood, and as soon as she was back up on her feet, sprinted toward the steps to safety. Did she still remember the tsunami routes out of the area? Was there any possible way they’d reach higher land in time? The fog rose over the ocean, making it impossible to see the incoming wave or how high it was rising.

She didn’t look back but sensed Dave behind her. Then his arm looped around her waist, and he pulled her backward.

“Stacey, stop!”

She didn’t want to stop; she wanted to escape. But his hold on her was firm as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to his chest.

“There’s no tsunami,” he said, his voice hoarse against her ear. “The mooing sound means the system is just conducting a test. If it was a real tsunami, you’d hear a siren.”

“A false alarm?”

It took several minutes for her to steady her breath. Whose idea was it to have a cow moo over the area? Tsunami or no tsunami, the raucous mooing had terrified her silly and certainly didn’t sound like any cow
she’d
ever heard before.

Stacey spent the next half hour telling Dave about the tornado that had ripped apart her family’s house in Nebraska, the feel of the wind, the abundance of thunder and lightning, the loss of her grandmother.

She and her brother had hidden in the crawl space beneath the tool shed; her parents had been driving and had pulled off the road to take refuge in the concrete bathroom at a rest stop. But her grandmother had been at the house of a friend who didn’t have any kind of storm shelter.

“You must have thought I was a freak when I started running,” Stacey said, still unable to forget the mooing cow sound used to test the Cannon Beach tsunami warning system.

Dave shook his head. “You have every right to freak out after what you’ve been through.”

She lifted her gaze to his. “So you
do
think I’m a freak?”

Dave laughed. “You’re different than most but not a freak.”

“I don’t want to be different,” she said and winced. “I want to fit in and be like everyone else.”

“Stace,” he said, his voice taking on a certain seriousness she’d never heard him use before, “By different, I mean in a good way. I like you just the way you are.”

“Really?”

In answer, his mouth lowered to hers, and he gave her a long, slow kiss, with a soft tenderness that far surpassed any she’d fabricated in her wildest imaginings.

That only left her with one other question. “Are you busy on August 24?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Dave whispered. “Why?”

She smiled, her hope for the future soaring. “Will you go to Kim’s wedding with me?”

Chapter Seven

Come walk with me, take off your shoes, let’s walk the beach with only the moon to light the path and waves to hear you tell me you love me.

—J. Henson, Oregon, United States

S
TACEY SAT UNDER
the umbrella table next to her cupcake stand and opened the Cupcake Diary to read over some of the entries. The weeks had flown by, and the pages of her book were almost full.

July 4: Fireworks over the Columbia River. Dave and I stood on the waterfront dock with Andi, Jake, and their children. Jake’s sister, Trish, showed up with her son, Evan, who is closer in age to Mia and Taylor than to Max. But her husband, Oliver, went MIA, and Trish wasn’t very happy. I felt sorry for Trish and know that Andi and Jake did, too. I imagine it’s no fun to be stood up for a date, even when married. Glad I have Dave. When we kissed we set off our own fireworks.

July 10: Dave and I traveled down the coast to Sea Lion Caves. The place would make a great storm shelter, but if there was an earthquake I’d be afraid the cave might collapse and we’d be trapped inside. Besides, the sea lions are so noisy we’d never get any sleep. The sound echoes off the interior walls and made it hard for us to hear each other talk. However, we found speech wasn’t necessary. (Grin.) We used sign language: hugs, smiles, and plenty of soft, meaningful gestures.

July 29: Dave said he wanted to take me to dinner but wouldn’t tell me where. I have to admit I was more than a little bit nervous when he picked me up at Aunt Sarah’s. I still haven’t overcome my fear of being ditched by my dates in restaurants. But Dave took me back to his house for the first time (he’s had to overcome some relationship fears of his own), and we ate sautéed chicken a la mode.

I thought his house was perfect enough when I saw the mailbox, front porch, and fenced in yard, but after dinner when he took me down to the wine cellar to show me his collection of ice cream scoops, I fell in love. It’s like an underground bunker, perfect to store a complete arsenal of supplies!

August 6: Today Dave and I went berry picking, and when we got back Dave used some to make homemade marionberry ice cream. I put the rest of the marionberries on the tops of the cupcakes. A marionberry is a cross between the Chehalem blackberry and the olallieberry. Very large. Taste fabulous. Customers loved the new flavor of the ice cream and cupcake combo. I gave one to Gladys, and she traded me several new pieces of sea glass.

August 15: Shed a tear for Rocky. That dreaded surfer came back today and when I wasn’t looking picked him up off the counter and threw him down into the sand. I screamed at the surfer like a lunatic, but he just laughed at me and said, “Dude. It’s just a rock.” I raced down to the beach and tried to find him, but there were a lot of people running around, and I think Rocky got buried alive. Anyhow, I couldn’t find him and was very upset about it, until Dave appeared like a shining angel and handed me a new rock. I named it Kate.

August 20: Dave asked if I’d ever flown a kite, and when I told him no, he was determined to teach me. I didn’t mind because he kept his arms wrapped around me the whole time. At first I was holding the strings too tight, and it was only when I let go that the kite could really fly. Made me realize I’ve been holding on too tight to other things in my life, like my emergency backpack, and maybe it’s time to kiss it goodbye. Most of the MREs are gone now anyway. I had to eat them in order to save money to give to Pam.

Stacey smiled as she flipped through the pages. She’d had many other adventures over the summer and had written down as many of the dates and details as she could, but to include them all would have required a much bigger book.

A
UGUST 24 ARRIVED
with a flourish of gold sun, blue sky, greenery, and colorful flowers, a perfect palette for the artistic painter who was about to marry her Swedish sweetheart in his backyard rose garden.

Kim had met Nathaniel a year earlier when she’d stepped into his yard full of blooming rosebushes, ponds, and ivy trellises and mistaken it for the new community park. She’d told him her goal was to sniff one hundred roses, one for every item on her “to do” list.

Today Stacey guessed there were one hundred roses decorating the outdoor gazebo lit with tiny twinkling white lights where the couple took their vows. Andi, Rachel, and Nathaniel’s sister, Linnea, stood in their floral gowns on one side of the couple, and Jake, Mike, and Nathaniel’s brother, Fredrik, each dressed in a black tuxedo, stood on the other.

If Stacey had come alone, the fact she hadn’t been invited into the wedding party might have bothered her, but with Dave by her side, she didn’t feel like an outcast—like Jake’s sister, Trish. The brunette had dark circles under her eyes as if from lack of sleep and had come escorted by eight-year-old, Evan, but once again with no husband in sight.

“Trish,” Stacey had called, waving to the mother and son when they’d arrived. “Please sit with us.”

Trish looked surprised but didn’t hesitate to claim the seat beside her. “Thanks,” she confided. “I hate to attend these things alone.”

After the ceremony Mia and Taylor, both flower girls, raced Max and Evan to the food tables. Stacey got up to join them and spied Ms. Slater, the state cupcake competition coordinator, standing by the lemon meringue wedding cupcakes.

When Andi and Kim drew near, she nodded to the woman and asked, “What is
she
doing here?”

Andi looked over at her and frowned. “
She’s
the one Dad brought as a date. Out of all the women in the world, how could he pick
her?
She’s cold and prickly and not anything like Mom.”

Stacey gasped. “I thought he was bringing the woman who owns that bookstore.”

Kim leaned her head in and whispered. “No, Ms. Slater and Dad used the bookstore as a meeting place.”

“Why didn’t she tell us who she was when she came into the shop?” Andi demanded.

“Maybe she thought it would be better if your father introduced her to you,” Stacey suggested. “I knew there was a reason she came in person instead of emailing the contest information. She was checking you out.”

“Could this affect the competition?” Kim asked.

Andi shook her head. “No, she’s a coordinator, not a judge.”

“Still,” Stacey warned, “she has influence, and who knows how many of the judges she knows.”

Kim took a deep breath and smiled. “I won’t let her ruin my wedding day. Aren’t the men so handsome dressed in their suits and tuxedos?”

“They are,” Stacey agreed, her gaze straying to Dave, who wore a navy blue suit, the top of his blond hair blowing gently in the warm breeze.

“You’ll be the next one to marry,” Kim told her.

“I’ve never been so happy!” Stacey admitted, her emotions bubbling over as she gushed. “Dave seems too good to be true. I’m almost afraid to blink for fear I’ll wake up and discover this entire summer has been nothing but a dream.”

“I think he’s in love with you, too,” Andi whispered.

In love?
Stacey sucked in her breath, but she knew it was true. She loved him! And she hoped with all her heart that Andi was right. She hoped Dave loved her, too. But so far neither one of them had said “I love you” to the other. While she needed stability, she also had a hard time giving someone her complete trust after having so many dates run out on her. And Dave, who had thought he’d married the right woman the first time, had been completely blindsided when his wife hit him up for a divorce and emptied his pockets for all he was worth. So they had taken each step of their relationship slow, careful not to rush into anything. But while one summer might not seem like a long time to some, when two people spent almost every waking minute of it with each other, it could seem like years. And that’s how Stacey felt every time she looked at Dave, as if they’d been together forever. If he asked her to marry him, there was no question in her mind she’d say yes.

“Andi!” Kim shouted, grabbing her sister’s arm. “Your face just turned three shades of pale. Are you having a contraction?”

Andi wrapped her arms around her large stomach, gritted her teeth, and cringed. “I . . . didn’t want . . . to tell you. Had to see . . . the wedding.”

“What are you talking about?” Rachel demanded, joining them, then saw Andi’s face. “Oh my gosh. She’s in labor!”

“I don’t suppose Mike could use some of his magic tricks to make the pain disappear?” Andi growled.

Rachel’s mouth dropped open. “No.”

Andi lifted her head and searched over the crowd.
“Jake?”

Jake’s eyes widened the minute he saw her, and he sprinted to her side. “Is it time?”

Andi nodded. “The contractions started again. I’ve had three in the last half hour. They’re worse than the ones I had last night.”

Andi and Kim’s father also came toward them. “About time that kid arrived. The due date was a week and a half ago.”

“Obviously, the baby wasn’t ready until now,” Jake said, taking Andi’s arm. “Can someone watch the kids?”

“Of course,” Kim said, giving him a little push. “Go! Take her to the hospital. Go, go, go!”

W
HILE MANY SPECULATED
on whether Andi would deliver a girl or a boy, the music from the small band from Rachel’s theater group began to play.

Nathaniel took Kim into his arms and kissed her as they glided back and forth beneath the trees on a carpet of green grass. Pink, yellow, red, white, and purple rosebushes surrounded them, and a crown of white rosebuds rested in Kim’s beautiful dark hair. Her beaded white lace dress flowed out behind her with every turn, and Stacey had the impression she was watching an enchanted forest princess.